Commentary on Australian and world events from a socialist and democratic viewpoint

Migration

Hi everyone. As you can see, there have been a few changes. For many years, Jacques Chester has kindly hosted this site and other Australian blogs. He’s had to move on, and the site has been migrated to WordPress.com. In the process, the theme has been lost and some recent comments may also have gone.

At the same time, I’ve had a lot of commitments that have slowed me down. I’ll be restoring as much as I can over the next week or so, and trying to resume normal posting.

Mostly, I’d like to thank Jacques for the massive effort he’s put in to supporting this and other blogs.

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5 thoughts on “Migration”

Haven’t followed your comings and goings, so I don’t know if you’re still involved with energy technology in any ongoing way, and you’ve probably seen this already if you are. But just in case you haven’t:

The question “what to do with the captured CO2” is potentially answered by the pilot in Iceland for mineral carbonation by injection into deep basalt beds. This rock is not universal, but there is a lot of it.

We are now wildly OT, but the Allam plant is big news, so let’s carry on (JQ can always move the comments to Monday’s Message Board).

Allam is working on a coal version, with money from the British government. Suppose both the gas demonstrator being built in Texas, and the coal variant, both work perfectly first time (unlikely) and the higher efficiency translates to lower costs. Is this a lifeline to coal mining?

Potentially yes, but a pretty thin one. First, it’s no help at all to the owners of current coal power stations like Mundra. It’s a radically new cycle and cannot be refitted to old plants. So for these, it’s just another better competitor. The financial agony will continue.

Second, timing. Net Power are building a 50 MW technical demonstrator. Then they have to build a full-size commercial demonstrator. Full commercial rollout will take 5 years or so. Add another 2 years for the coal variant. This will be competing for new investment money with wind, solar and batteries at 2025 prices. Can it capture some of the market? Why not? But it won’t be a very large share. Most coal miners will still lose their jobs.

The problem with natural gas is not just emissions but fugitive emissions. From the gas-fields to the pipelines, valves, tankers, tanks and sites of use domestic and industrial, there are fugitive emissions. There are a great deal of extra pollutants from coal including sulfur, mercury and volatile organic compounds. The entire fossil fuel industry needs to be shut down as a matter of urgency. All these technologies to spin out the life-span of fossil fuels are deleterious and lead to dangerous delays of substantive action. The only correct path, on scientific evidence, is to leave all remaining fossil fuels in the ground. If we can’t do that expeditiously without crashing our economy then we haven’t taken action in time. Disastrous climate change is now certain barring catastrophes equally or more damaging to global civilization than severe climate change itself.